October 29, 2009
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Ingersoll Dahl’s Makeover
35th Street Café
The re-opening of 35th Street Café this month signaled the final stage of a long, controversial makeover of the Ingersoll Avenue Dahl’s, a neighborhood anchor since the Truman Administration.
The original store opened in 1952 with a band, an elephant and a donkey, plus building-sized photos of presidential candidates. It introduced brave new concepts to Des Moines including an underground train that transported groceries to a Dahl House pickup station, a Kiddie Koral, rotisserie chickens and an in-store café. The restaurant kept loyal customers until it closed in the first phase of the makeover. Scores of regulars were then displaced after decades of sitting around three oval counters that facilitated conversation and camaraderie but not table turning and profits. The café stayed packed for most of 55 years, with people waiting for a seat to open at rush hours and retirees chatting over coffee during off hours. Because the store’s customer base is heavy on nostalgic senior citizens, expectations for the reopening were high. Too high.
Like the new store itself, 35th Street Café is more spacious and has a far bigger menu. New furniture includes over stuffed couches, a giant fireplace and six person booths. On a recent Sunday, customers rearranged furniture to try to simulate the old open counters. The fireplace’s artificial glow seemed a poor surrogate for the warmth of the old design. One long time regular said that the old store had 200 parking places within 125 feet of the entrance and the new store only has 55. He said he paced it off and counted. Another old-timer said his friend had too much time on his hands. I did some counting and pacing and think his math might be right though. The parking lot mystified customers by sacrificing good parking for five lanes of drop-off space, “like one sees in a big Las Vegas casino.” It gives up more good parking for huge islands of mulch. One customer said it was designed by someone who likes pretty drawings, not someone who thought about the client. Bad parking might not be the only reason but on successive days at rush hour, the number of people I counted eating in the café stayed in single digits.
Spaciousness provided some positives, too. Customers are allowed to buy food in the deli and eat it sitting down. The old café was too busy to permit that. Now it’s highly encouraged by an “all you can eat” buffet that dominates the dining area. On one occasion, $7 delivered four kinds of pasta dishes, meatballs, sausage and peppers, a potato dish, desserts and a 37 item salad bar, with fresh mesclun and extra virgin olive oil. Though there are no waitresses, the old menu was nostalgically provided. From it, I ordered a hamburger that betrayed memory with an industrial meat patty on a plain, soggy dinner roll instead of the old toasted and buttered Dahl’s egg bun.
A hot beef sandwich was as bad as they get, tough beef almost as salty as dried beef, with institutional gravy. A breakfast special was less disappointing, though toast was served with margarine only.
Deli specials were much better. One day there were 13 entrees and 40 side dishes to choose among. An entrée, two sides with roll and margarine cost just $5.50 – $7. Chicken and noodles, beef stew and pot roast were excellent cafeteria style dishes. (Why not make the hot beef with the pot roast?) Baked cod was a mistake; it dried out in a hot case. Among side dishes, vinegar and oil slaw stood out with crisp veggies and tangy dressing. The café could use a veggie plate special, as none of the entrees were vegan.
Bottom line — A Gateway Market executive told me that he was “happily under whelmed” by what he saw here. I share his assessment but not his joy.
